We arrived in Bucharest two days ago, with just enough time to drop our baggage, round up some supplies, enjoy our first bottle of Romanian wine, and go to bed.

Yesterday, we started to explore. The city initially had some work to do to make an impression. The sky has been resolutely grey since we arrived. And it has been pretty cold (yesterday particularly so). We've been very lucky with the weather on this trip up to now, but I'm now back up to four layers on top, and two layers on my legs...

Plus, the area around our home base is a patchy one. There are some slick modern buildings; there are some slightly down-at-heel but still-beautiful old buildings; and there are some real wrecks.

Examples:




But by the time you reach Gradina Cismigiu, and find Atlas, and the wonderful house behind him, you're already into the swing of things:



And then the fine views start coming thick and fast:




Not to mention cool trams:



And nicely muralled buildings (why doesn't everyone do this, given it looks so much better than plain concrete?):



But as you're walking around, it's also not long before you start encountering memories of a troubled past:


This is the People's Palace, now the Parliament:



According to Bucharest-born Cory Varga, this complex -- in addition to the vast heights you can see -- has eight underground levels, the last one being an atomic bunker. It was inspired by then-President Nicolae Ceausescu's travels to North Korea in 1971... Construction began in 1984 (there's an irony there), and not only were 40,000 residents, Varga says, relocated to make room for it, but several thousand labourers also lost their lives during the construction stages.

Ceausescu never actually occupied his fortress, being executed, along with his wife, at the end of 1989...

And yes, we saw something of the tragedy leading up to that, too. We were actually planning to visit the Bellu Cemetery, but there were "workings" (the sort we're very used to, which involve depriving you of your pavement, and directing you off across a really busy road, that you will have to re-cross to get where you want to go, and so you give up...). But instead, we visited the Revolution Heroes Cemetery:




The Romanian uprising was the bloodiest of the anti-communist revolutions of 1989. More than 1,100 people were killed, and many more injured. And yet the violence is still somewhat opaque: "In the chaotic days that followed Ceausescu’s ouster in what is now known as the Romanian Revolution, more civilians were shot and killed than during Ceausescu’s military crackdown on protesters during the days before. And no one has a clear answer as to why or by whom... In the 30 years since the revolution, investigations into the violent aftermath have been opened and closed several times... In 2016, Romania’s deputy general prosecutor decided to reopen the case, saying that the prior arguments for dropping it were not convincing and that the military prosecutors hadn’t focused on establishing what exactly happened."

I don't think we're much further forward at this point...


Given this troubled past, Romania wonders, like many other countries, what to do about certain monuments:


The area now called Revolution Square is the place that saw the beginning of the end for the Ceausescus. The president's last speech was given from here -- from the balcony of the former Central Committee of the Communist Party building, to be precise -- on 21 December 1989.





So that's already a ton of stuff to be dealing with. Well predating this upheaval, however, were other traumas. According to Valentina Manastireanu, the city once hosted a thriving Jewish community (making up almost 11 per cent of the population between the wars). The anti-Semitism of the war years (and earlier), combined with subsequent emigration to the United States and Israel, have meant that the Jewish population has fallen to some 2,000 people. The old Jewish quarter was largely destroyed by Ceausescu, and just a few buildings remain:






What a turbulent history...

Luckily, there's an attractive and well-stocked bookshop to give you some ideas on what to read to find out more: